Chronicle Science Editor David Perlman has been honored with a lifetime achievement award for a journalism career that spans seven decades.

The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Perlman, 91, with the 2010 Helen Thomas Award for his service and contributions to the profession. He is the 10th winner of the prize named for the longtime White House correspondent.

Perlman took his first job at The Chronicle in 1940 and, except for some time off to serve in World War II and a stint at the International Herald Tribune, he has been spitting out newspaper stories at the San Francisco paper ever since.

"With nearly 100 bylines last year, Perlman worked at a pace that left his colleagues in awe," Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee wrote in the nomination letter. "To call him spry would be an insult."

His stories offer complex topics in simple terms, combined with a sense of wonder, Bushee said.

He has been honored repeatedly for his work, with two awards bearing his name: The David Perlman Award for Excellence in Medical Journalism and the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism.

Perlman has chronicled humanity's love affair with space exploration and scientific discovery, traveling to remote regions of the Earth to hunt hominid fossils in the Afar desert or to explain hydrothermal vents in the Galapagos Rift Zone.

He was the first to report on AIDS cases in 1981 and followed the devastating disease as it tracked a path through the continents of the globe, researchers hot on its tail.

And there was Mars, the topic of hundreds of stories with a Perlman byline, each one filled with easily understood science and that dash of wonder.

"No human ear has ever heard the sounds of Mars, yet sounds there must be," Perlman wrote in 1999 about a new microphone on Mars. "Sands blowing across the red Martian surface must rasp and grind as the gritty stuff piles against boulders or drifts down ancient streambeds.

"Thunder may boom across the arid landscape when storms build up in the tenuous Martian atmosphere. And electrical discharges should fill the frigid air with crackles and pops if the Martian storms are severe."

Perlman will accept the award Oct. 5 at the society's conference in Las Vegas.